The Greatest Works of S. S. Van Dine (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine

Markham’s secretary came to the door and announced the arrival of Miss St. Clair.

      I think we were all taken a little aback at the spectacle presented by this young woman as she came slowly into the room with a firm graceful step, and with her head held slightly to one side in an attitude of supercilious inquiry. She was small and strikingly pretty, although “pretty” is not exactly the word with which to describe her. She possessed that faintly exotic beauty that we find in the portraits of the Carracci, who sweetened the severity of Leonardo and made it at once intimate and decadent. Her eyes were dark and widely spaced; her nose was delicate and straight, and her forehead broad. Her full sensuous lips were almost sculpturesque in their linear precision, and her mouth wore an enigmatic smile, or hint of a smile. Her rounded firm chin was a bit heavy when examined apart from the other features, but not in the ensemble. There was poise and a certain strength of character in her bearing; but one sensed the potentialities of powerful emotions beneath her exterior calm. Her clothes harmonized with her personality: they were quiet and apparently in the conventional style, but a touch of color and originality here and there conferred on them a fascinating distinction.

      Markham rose and, bowing with formal courtesy, indicated a comfortable upholstered chair directly in front of his desk. With a barely perceptible nod, she glanced at the chair, and then seated herself in a straight armless chair standing next to it.

      “You won’t mind, I’m sure,” she said, “if I choose my own chair for the inquisition.”

      Her voice was low and resonant—the speaking voice of the highly trained singer. She smiled as she spoke, but it was not a cordial smile: it was cold and distant, yet somehow indicative of levity.

      “Miss St. Clair,” began Markham, in a tone of polite severity, “the murder of Mr. Alvin Benson has intimately involved yourself. Before taking any definite steps, I have invited you here to ask you a few questions. I can, therefore, advise you quite honestly that frankness will best serve your interests.”

      He paused, and the woman looked at him with an ironically questioning gaze.

      “Am I supposed to thank you for your generous advice?”

      Markham’s scowl deepened as he glanced down at a typewritten page on his desk.

      “You are probably aware that your gloves and hand-bag were found in Mr. Benson’s house the morning after he was shot.”

      “I can understand how you might have traced the hand-bag to me,” she said; “but how did you arrive at the conclusion that the gloves were mine?”

      Markham looked up sharply.

      “Do you mean to say the gloves are not yours?”

      “Oh, no.” She gave him another wintry smile. “I merely wondered how you knew they belonged to me, since you couldn’t have known either my taste in gloves or the size I wore.”

      “They’re your gloves, then?”

      “If they are Tréfousse, size five-and-three-quarters, of white kid and elbow length, they are certainly mine. And I’d so like to have them back, if you don’t mind.”

      “I’m sorry,” said Markham; “but it is necessary that I keep them for the present.”

      She dismissed the matter with a slight shrug of the shoulders.

      “Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked.

      Markham instantly opened a drawer of his desk, and took out a box of Benson and Hedges cigarettes.

      “I have my own, thank you,” she informed him. “But I would so appreciate my holder. I’ve missed it horribly.”

      Markham hesitated. He was manifestly annoyed by the woman’s attitude.

      “I’ll be glad to lend it to you,” he compromised; and reaching into another drawer of his desk, he laid the holder on the table before her.

      “Now, Miss St. Clair,” he said, resuming his gravity of manner, “will you tell me how these personal articles of yours happened to be in Mr. Benson’s living-room?”

      “No, Mr. Markham, I will not,” she answered.

      “Do you realize the serious construction your refusal places upon the circumstances?”

      “I really hadn’t given it much thought.” Her tone was indifferent.

      “It would be well if you did,” Markham advised her. “Your position is not an enviable one; and the presence of your belongings in Mr. Benson’s room is, by no means, the only thing that connects you directly with the crime.”

      The woman raised her eyes inquiringly, and again the enigmatic smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.

      “Perhaps you have sufficient evidence to accuse me of the murder?”

      Markham ignored this question.

      “You were well acquainted with Mr. Benson, I believe?”

      “The finding of my hand-bag and gloves in his apartment might lead one to assume as much, mightn’t it?” she parried.

      “He was, in fact, much interested in you?” persisted Markham.

      She made a moue, and sighed.

      “Alas, yes! Too much for my peace of mind. . . . Have I been brought here to discuss the attentions this gentleman paid me?”

      Again Markham ignored her query.

      “Where were you, Miss St. Clair, between the time you left the Marseilles at midnight and the time you arrived home—which, I understand, was after one o’clock?”

      “You are simply wonderful!” she exclaimed. “You seem to know everything. . . . Well, I can only say that during that time I was on my way home.”

      “Did it take you an hour to go from Fortieth Street to Eighty-first and Riverside Drive?”

      “Just about, I should say,—a few minutes more or less, perhaps.”

      “How do you account for that?” Markham was becoming impatient.

      “I can’t account for it,” she said, “except by the passage of time. Time does fly, doesn’t it, Mr. Markham?”

      “By your attitude you are only working detriment to yourself,” Markham warned her, with a show of irritation. “Can you not see the seriousness of your position? You are known to have dined with Mr. Benson, to have left the restaurant at midnight, and to have arrived at your own apartment after one o’clock. At twelve-thirty, Mr. Benson was shot; and your personal articles were found in the same room the morning after.”

      “It looks terribly suspicious, I know,” she admitted, with whimsical seriousness. “And I’ll tell you this, Mr. Markham: if my thoughts could have killed Mr. Benson, he would have died long ago. I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead—there’s a saying about it beginning ‘de mortuis,’ isn’t there?—but the truth is, I had reason to dislike Mr. Benson exceedingly.”

      “Then why did you go to dinner with him?”

      “I’ve asked myself the same question a dozen times since,” she confessed dolefully. “We women are such impulsive creatures—always doing things we shouldn’t. . . . But I know what you’re thinking:—if I had intended to shoot him, that would have been a natural preliminary. Isn’t that what’s in your mind? I suppose all murderesses do go to dinner with their victims first.”

      While she spoke she opened her vanity-case and looked at her reflection in its mirror. She daintily adjusted several imaginary stray ends of her abundant dark-brown hair, and touched her arched eyebrows gently with her little finger as if to rectify some infinitesimal disturbance in their pencilled contour. Then she tilted her head, regarded herself appraisingly, and returned her gaze to the District Attorney only as she came to the end of her speech. Her actions had perfectly conveyed to her listeners the impression that the subject of the conversation